


Early Night Out

by whereismygarden



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Walk Into A Bar, shameless cliché
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-04-25 19:31:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4973395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whereismygarden/pseuds/whereismygarden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young's having an uncomfortable dinner. Telford's playing pool at the other side of the bar.</p><p>This is an AU where Young and Telford both have military histories but it's absolutely irrelevant to what happens in this story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't intend for this to be as graphic as it is, whoops! I also intended to make it longer, but there you go. Also, it's really awkward for me referring to them by their first names. Also, I hate writing titles.

                Everett really didn’t like this kind of atmosphere: slightly grungy sports bars were fine with him, but the posturing conversation, at high volume, was too much. It was like listening to a bunch of college freshmen bragging among themselves, except these men were in their late thirties and forties. One of them, who had an ugly mustache and far too much confidence in his ability to evaluate the plays the Seahawks were making on the television, kept hitting on their waitress, who looked about twenty, and unhappy. He was regretting letting himself be talked into this. He’d always considered Jim, who’d invited him, to be a little much sometimes, but his friends were worse. He’d only been here fifteen minutes and he was beyond ready to leave.

                Mustache was harassing the waitress again: he couldn’t even call it flirting, because it was neither charming nor reciprocated.

                “Hey sweetheart, bring me another, will you?” He squinted at her nametag. “Ginny? Thanks darling.” She took his empty glass away with a faint, forced smile, and hopefully didn’t notice the guy staring at her as she walked back to the bar.

                “Lay off, man,” he said, because no one else did and he was sitting across from the asshole. “She’s way too young for you.” Mustache was probably older than he was.

                “Don’t be a buzzkill. Long as she’s legal, right?”

                Everett gave Jim a hard glare, and the man shifted in his seat.

                “Young’s got a point, man. You could take it down a notch.”

                Mustache took it down for about two minutes, after which Everett left cash for his beer and as much again for their poor waitress. Jim and a few others made protesting sounds, but he walked off without looking back.

                He almost left the bar entirely, but in a far corner, furthest from the TVs, were a few pool tables. The low sound of jukebox music floated towards him. He paused, drifted a bit closer. There was a game in progress: some biker types all in black leather were monopolizing the corner table, but at another table, two women were just bidding farewell to a man holding a cue.

                “Thanks for the game,” the dark-haired one was saying: her friend, with curly reddish blond hair, was leaning on her shoulder, swaying a bit.

                “Thanks for kicking my ass,” he said amicably. Everett nodded to the women as they passed, watching the guy gather up the balls from the pockets and set them back onto the table. He was dark-haired and dark-eyed, with skin that suggested his ancestors came from all over the world, and wearing dark jeans and a blue plaid shirt. His hair looked like it was growing out of a buzz cut.

                “You want another game?” Everett asked, and he turned around, folding his arms.

                “Sure thing,” he said after a second, moving easily to settle the balls into the rack. “You want to break ‘em?”

                Everett felt a touch unsettled as he leaned down to line up his shot. The other guy stood with his arms folded, a neutral expression on his face. One of the solids went into the far right pocket, but he scratched the next shot. He stepped back from the table: he wasn’t much of a player, which was probably already obvious.

                The other guy had a good form, but more than that, he had an intensity in his focus that looked out of place in a pool game. More appropriate for someone behind a gun or the controls of a plane. He sank three in a row, but a raucous yell from one of the bikers interrupted him halfway through his fourth shot, and nothing went in. He straightened up and smiled at Everett. He had a nice smile: handsome, with more than a little competitive edge to it, a flash of something hot in his eyes. Everett resisted an urge to shiver.

                “That’s you, then,” he said, retreating from the table again.

                “Yeah,” Everett said, feeling unaccountably _watched_ as he walked around the table, trying to line up his shot. After how seriously the other man had treated the execution of his shots, he felt like he needed to get his head in the game, and lined up the cue ball as carefully as possible to angle off the table side, accounting for the geometries by intuition. He got two balls in, but knocked in one of the stripes on accident. “Guess it’s pretty obvious I don’t play much.”

                “Yeah,” the guy agreed, but not in a nasty way. He cleared the rest of the stripes with little trouble, and called one of the middle pockets. The eight ball rolled in swift and sure. He straightened up, turned to look at Everett again, his dark eyes sparkling. “Wanna make the next one more interesting?”

~

                David wasn’t quite sure about this guy. He’d seen him walk over from a table of loud guys at the other end of the bar, but he was quiet. Not too good at pool, but not so insecure he wouldn’t play. He had curly hair, a little longer than standard for your average guy in business casual clothes. At first sight, David had pegged him as one of the many unattainable straight yet attractive men he was doomed to meet. He hadn’t smiled back much, but he also hadn’t turned around to watch the tall, leather-clad female biker take her shots behind them. Of course, he could just be courteous, or not want a cue in the face from her or her friends.

                He suggested making the game more interesting, because pool wasn’t fun when one person was much better than the other.

                “How?” the guy replied, but looking intrigued, or at least amused.

                “Winner has to do shots after the game.”

                A faint smile edged around his mouth, and he leaned the cue against the table.

                “What do you drink?”

                For a second, David wasn’t sure what the right response was: was he offering to buy the shots? His quirked eyebrow somehow suggested he was, and he felt something shift in his belly.

                “Tequila,” he said, grinning back, not dialing back the flirtatious edge. “Might as well make it really interesting.”

                His new friend returned with two shots, and handed him the first one. David didn’t believe in throwing shots back, at least not when they were tequila and had actual flavor. He sipped at both of them, and kept an eye on the guy—it was a bit odd he didn’t know his name—while he swallowed. Yeah, he was definitely looking, even if his face didn’t show any reaction.

                “David, by the way,” he said, and held his hand out. The other guy smiled a little sheepishly, as though he couldn’t believe he hadn’t introduced himself, and shook his hand. He had a strong grip: David let his fingers hesitate over his wrist as he drew back.

                “Everett.” It was a nice name.

                “Shall we get back to the game?”

                “I don’t know.” Everett paused for a second, and deadpanned, “I want the tequila to kick in before you go back to the table.” He had a way of saying everything very gruffly and shortly, but there was a hint of wryness there that David liked. A sense of humor, a broad-shouldered body, and a handsome face. And maybe not so hetero after all?

                He did sink two balls before messing up this time, but when Everett leaned down to aim, he stepped up close behind him.

                “Your elbow’s all wrong,” he said, and adjusted it. He wasn’t drunk enough to actually do this, but hopefully Everett wouldn’t know and would let it slide. He was drunk enough to stoop to flirting as though he _was_ drunk. And getting there didn’t take more than two shots of tequila when it came to Everett, apparently.

                “Oh yeah?” Everett said, looking at him over his shoulder with knowing hazel eyes. Yeah, he definitely knew what David was doing, and he wasn’t asking him to stop. A current of lust ran through him from his jaws to the soles of his feet. Christ, he was _itching_ all the sudden.

                “Definitely,” he said, directing the desire that was coursing through him out through his eyes and mouth. He usually tried to tone down his fuck-me looks, because people told him he looked too intense, but he didn’t this time. Everett seemed like a mountain, like he could take a little intensity in stride. “Way too high.” The cue clicked against the balls, and the fourteen rolled smoothly into the pocket—this time, Everett was stripes.

                Everett handed him the cue without a word, without even a smug look on his face, but his eyes were amused and knowing and victorious all at once. At some point, David had lost the upper hand here. He tilted his head surreptitiously to the side, trying to judge how drunk he was. Not very.

                “It’s still your turn,” he pointed out. Everett stood still, hands behind his back like he was at parade rest.

                “I don’t care about winning, and you already won once,” he said. He stepped closer to David, closer than was generally appropriate for a bar like this. His calm face was undercut by just the tiniest flash of uncertainty in his eyes.

                “I did,” he agreed.

                “I don’t want you to get too drunk,” Everett continued, and David felt his heart thudding in his chest, a slight surge of cold as his sympathetic nervous system released adrenaline into his suddenly nervous blood. He felt his lips curl up into a smile, and set the cue down on the table, brushing his hand against Everett’s wrist. He didn’t pull away from the touch, and David tracked his eyes moving from his hand back to his face.

                “Me either,” he said, and flicked his eyes towards the door. This didn’t seem the kind of place where they could fuck in the bathroom. Everett didn’t seem the type of man who would fuck in a bathroom.

                He was, as it turned out, the type of man who would make out in the barely-dark street, between the bar and the closed-down local newspaper office. He hauled David toward him the moment they were even a bit concealed, strong arms on his biceps, then a hand on his face: gentle but heavy. Then his lips were on David’s and he was nipping at Everett’s in return. God, yes, he was glad the guy wasn’t straight.

~

                Everett wasn’t used to being with people as strong as he was: his ex-wife had been fit, but thin and light, and the one guy he’d hooked up with since the divorce (two nights after signing the papers, after he didn’t know how much liquor) had been quite slender. David was all muscle underneath the plaid, dragging him close with a strength he’d have to use effort to resist. Not that he wanted to resist. Not with the guy’s tongue in his mouth and his hands grabbing restlessly under his jacket at his arms, his chest, his back. He _was_ intense: never still, aggressive, putting his whole body into shoving him against the wall and pressing them together from chest to knees.

                God, but it was doing something to him. The slow, low current of amused flirtation and banter, the electric looks David had been blatantly directing his way: they had made him leave the bar faster than he’d ever left anywhere with anyone. This was even more. He could taste tequila on the man’s mouth, a faint residue of the distinctive flavor on his narrow lips, and David’s tongue was slick and hot and slow. He pulled away from his mouth and bit at his jaw and neck, getting his hands on the man’s ass and grinding them together. David was a few inches taller than him, most guys were, but that just meant it was easy to brace himself on the wall and hold him by the backs of his thighs.

                “God,” David panted, head turned to the side so Everett could press open-mouthed kisses against his taut throat. He kept moving his hips, grinding them into Everett, and it was easy to feel his hard dick, despite the tight, heavy fabric of his jeans. His skin was salty and hot, thrumming with his heartbeat under Everett’s tongue and teeth.

                “I’ll drive you back later if you need to get your car,” Everett said, and David tilted his head down to look at him, a little unbelieving, hands stilling on his shoulders.

                “Are we going back to your place?” he asked. Everett put his hand deliberately on the waistband of his jeans, fingers pressed against his stomach. David shivered, closed his eyes, and looked like he was biting back words or just noise.

                “Unless yours is closer,” he said.

                “Let’s go.” David stepped back from him, squaring his shoulders. Everett reached down to adjust himself: he had to drive, after all.

                His one-bedroom studio opened right into the kitchen, which was how they ended up pressed against the refrigerator, hands at each other’s belts and zippers and underwear until their cocks were bare and pressed together, slick with spit and pre-come. Everett was getting lost in the mindless, uncoordinated friction of their artless rubbing off, in David’s relentless grip on his hair and the flash of his dark eyes, when the man pulled away, making him groan in confused protest.

                “Come on,” he said, but David was already getting down onto the floor, and that was okay. That was more than okay, because he hadn’t even brought it up, and then there were hot lips and tongue wrapped around his dick, and he was losing his ability for coherent thought. He traced his hands over David’s face, through his hair, down the length of his jaw, and focused on not moving his hips.

                “You can’t hurt me,” David said, putting his hand on Everett’s tense thigh, stopping for a second, as if reading his mind. As if to demonstrate, he grabbed him by the hips and shoved him, hard. “I won’t choke.”

                And, God, that was something. Sex with someone as physically strong as him meant he didn’t have to be as conscious of how he moved, what he did. He felt his chest and stomach lurch, let go of his reservations as much as he could, and worked his fingers into David’s hair. His hands were firm on Everett’s hips, keeping his movements restricted, but not too much. He ended up fucking David’s mouth, harder than he meant to, hand on the back of his neck, and finished with a voiceless gasp, bending forward as he came.

                David just pushed him back slowly, eyes smug and almost victorious in their arousal, and got to his feet. Everett couldn’t help but grab him by the shoulders and kiss him, working his hand down to his stiff cock, sliding it firm and fast through his palm. One of David’s hands wrapped around his, slowing it down, and the other snaked back into his hair. Everett slowed his hand even further, teasing the edge of David’s lip with his tongue, and watched his face.

                “You’re getting off on not getting off, aren’t you?” he whispered, entranced by the half-pained, half-ecstatic look on his face.

                “Everyone does,” he gritted out in response, fingers trembling. “Orgasm is just the finale.”

                “Should I not bring you there, then?” he asked, making it a threat. Those intense eyes flashed at him.

                “Don’t you dare,” he said, and Everett pushed him across the room, pinned him to the wall with an arm across his chest, and finished him so fast he didn’t even have time to kiss him again. “Fuck,” he said finally, panting and shaking. Everett traced a hand down his face, which was beautifully flushed. He wasn’t sure what to say, but the satiation in his eyes tugged hard at something under his ribs.

~

                God, he hadn’t expected most of that. Hadn’t expected more than handjobs in the dark outside, to be honest. But now he had Everett in front of him, watching his face with calm eyes. His hand moved from David’s face to his chest.

                “Hungry?” he asked finally, stepping back, getting back into his pants and straightening himself. He grabbed a towel from the stove and handed it to David, who cleaned off and dropped it to the floor.

                “Yeah,” he replied, because he kind of was, and Everett didn’t look like he just wanted to drop him back off by his car. He sat down at the kitchen table and accepted a sheepish offer of beer and snacks. He drained half the beer, glad to get the bitter, salty taste of semen out of his mouth, and looked over at Everett. He looked almost nervous, as if he didn’t know what he was doing. Maybe he didn’t.

                “I guess you don’t pick up many people at bars,” he said, getting right to the point.

                “No,” he replied, after a pause. Apparently the being quiet thing wasn’t a product of being at the bar. He was looking at David with an expression that was as much friendly as lustful. David found he didn’t mind.

%MCEPASTEBIN%


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well I wrote a second bit. I'm not quite satisfied with it but I can't figure out where the changes need to be made so I'm posting it as it is.

                Everett finished his beer, feeling uncertain. What next? David was eating and looking at him, some kind of smile playing around his mouth. He couldn’t tell what the man wanted. He peeled the label off his beer. What did _he_ want? He looked back at David, meeting his eyes. They were warm, still interested, not demanding but no longer hazy from climax. He flexed his hands. What he wanted was to get his hands back on the man, strip him out of his shirt and jeans and feel everything that was underneath. The urge was like a living heat, settling just under his skin, making every part of his body want to be touched.

                He set his empty bottle on the counter and walked forward, so that he was in front of David, but not too close. The man tipped his head back just slightly, and moved his legs so that they were open, very deliberately letting Everett between them. God, that didn’t leave much up his interpretation, did it? He traced his fingers slowly down his neck, to the first button of his shirt, and undid it.

                “Want to see the rest of the place?” he asked, his own voice sounding rough in his ears. David met his eyes.

                “Yeah,” he said, and Everett pulled him to his feet, fully untucking his rather rumpled shirt as he did. Then he walked backward, slowly, eyes still fixed on David’s. The only other room besides the bathroom was his bedroom, and he felt his heartbeat pick up as they walked in. He couldn’t tell if he was the hunter or the hunted, but he was sparking with something pent-up, adrenaline and lust already making his dick feel heavy.

                This time, he shoved David back into the wall to kiss him, hands between them, undoing his shirt and shoving it off his shoulders and down his arms. He wasn’t shy, but he didn’t have any reason to be: Everett had been alternately described as being bear-like or bull-like, which was a nice way of saying that he was blocky and not particularly graceful in his body, but this man was built like a tiger and moved like a wolf. He kissed, though, like he was trying to consume Everett. For a while, he was distracted by that, the attention he had to put into the act. It was ridiculous, how turned on he was getting by just the kissing: sure, the heat of David’s skin was now immediate under his hands, and the man had just sucked Everett’s dick with the lips he had caught between his teeth. But he didn’t know why he was wanting so strongly he was shaking with it, when he wasn’t—couldn’t be—even hard yet.

                “Holy fuck, you’re--“ he ran his hands roughly over David’s chest and shoulders, tracing the characters tattooed over his skin. He leaned forward, bit over his collarbone. “I need to fuck you tonight.”

                “Oh yeah?” David said, breathlessly, and then his hands were on Everett’s clothes, stripping him out of his shirt and pants, socks and shoes, until they were both naked on the bed. Everett couldn’t shake the urge to feel every inch of him, and ran his hands over his legs and ass, then shoved him onto his back. David’s hands were busy at his shoulders, legs, dragging him in close. He turned them over, bent his head down and licked over Everett’s nipple, which sent a surprising jolt of arousal through him. He grunted in surprise, and David bit him.

                “Fuck,” he said, and started to turn them over again. David trapped his arm and leg, intending to hold him still, but his grip was still playful, and it was easy to apply pressure and break the hold to shove him back down. David stilled as he did so, then met his eyes.

                “Well, shit,” he said, and Everett caught his breath. “You don’t see a countermove like that every day.”

                “I usually leave my combat training out of the bedroom,” he said, intrigued by the revelation that David was military as well. Or ex-military as well, judging by his growing-out hair and the lack of indentation in his neck a rarely-removed pair of dogtags would make. “But maybe I shouldn’t.” He pressed his elbow into David’s back, climbed on top of him, and unabashedly ground his bare erection against his ass.

                David made him work to keep him pinned down as he grabbed for the lube and condoms on the floor by the bed, and he had gotten onto his back and hooked a leg around Everett’s by the time he had the lube in his hand. This made it easy to lean down and kiss him again, tongue pushing into his mouth, ending with a less than gentle bite to his lips.

                “Come on and fuck me already,” David said, shoulders relaxing, legs slipping apart, and Everett returned his manic smile and bright interest with as much eagerness.

~

                Everett was a fucking tease, as it turned out, finger-fucking him for ages until his cock was leaking and he was actually moaning when Everett occasionally stroked a finger over his balls. Then he hauled him up onto his knees, turned him around, and fucked him harder than he’d ever been fucked. The man had a thick cock, and it had been a huge turn-on when he was sucking him off, but up his ass—it was on the edge of uncomfortable. David had never been so hard in his life, he thought—he had his hand clenched tight in Everett’s hair, and the other arm supporting his weight against the bed. Everett’s left hand was holding his hip in a crushing grip, and his other hand was on his face, two fingers in his mouth. It was messy: saliva dripping from his mouth, crying out with every thrust of Everett’s hips against the man’s fingers, feeling Everett’s hot, labored breath against the back of his neck, thighs tense with his own weight. God, it was good, though.

                “God, yes,” Everett was panting over him, and he wanted to jerk off so badly, but he was loathe to let go of Everett’s hair. He did, though, surrendering his hold on his thick curls, closing his hand over his cock at last. He got in a few good jerks before Everett’s hand moved off his hip, closed over his wrist and pulled his hand away.

                “Fuck,” he gasped, trying to shake loose.

                “I wanna see if you can come just from getting fucked,” Everett rumbled into his ear, letting his hand go.

                “I can’t,” he said, and then Everett’s hand was on his thigh again, over his stomach.

                “Let me do it,” he insisted, and David put his hands next to each other on the mattress, letting him. In the past, rough sex had been more of an indulgence on his part for his partner’s sake, but Everett was strong enough that he was actually vulnerable, arms shaking with his weight, the man’s bulk trapping him. It made him feel oddly loose, almost fearful, as if his stomach had been hollowed out, but he was so, so tense, muscles burning.

                Everett rubbed a hand over his balls, then just once over his cock, and he came, arms finally collapsing, gasping and crying out into the sheets. His whole mind whited out into nothing but bliss, barely conscious of the fact that Everett was still pounding into him, hands on his hip and shoulder.

                He was still shaking, barely finished, when Everett let out a shuddering breath over him, hips losing their rhythm, and then all but fell on top of him.

                They got rid of the condom, and Everett gave him a lazy, slow kiss, hands smoothing over his back again. He should probably decide what to do. He would in a moment.

                He woke up to grey light filtering in through closed blinds, combining with the light of the lamp neither of them had bothered to turn off the night before. Everett was breathing slow and steady next to him, one arm draped over his back. Oh, shit.

                He wasn’t hungover: his head didn’t ache, and he was just a little thirsty and sticky, overheated. He had fallen asleep. They had both fallen asleep, and he’d slept the night at the man’s house. He sat up, dislodging Everett’s arm, and he woke up, turning to look at David.

                “Oh,” he said, taking stock of things, pushing his curly hair back from his face. “Huh.” This was strange. David made it something of a habit not to stay the night with people he slept with. It was better that way, less confusing for them, and less work. Everett didn’t seem pissed or upset, and just woken up, he wasn’t wearing the inscrutable look he’d had at the bar.

                “God, I need some coffee.” Everett sat up, rubbed his face, and gave David an interested look. “You want any?” He got out of bed, pulled on boxers and a t-shirt, and headed for the door.

                “Yeah,” David said belatedly. He didn’t want to put on his shirt, because it was hot in Everett’s apartment, and he didn’t want to put on his underwear, because they weren’t boxers, and he would look stupid. He didn’t want to put on Everett’s clothes either, and something was gnawing worriedly at the back of his throat that made him not want to get fully dressed. Everett hadn’t.

                Fuck it, this was ridiculous. He helped himself to a t shirt and shorts from Everett’s dresser, and announced that he thought it was hot as he walked into the kitchen.

                “Yeah, I usually remember to open the windows at night,” Everett said, filling the bottom of a French press with coffee. David couldn’t decide if it was pretentious or not, but decided, based on what else he’d seen of the man, that it wasn’t.

                He was almost done with the first cup of coffee when he remembered.

                “Oh, shit.”

                “What?” Everett was making toast.

                “My fucking car.”

                “I can drive you back.”

                “No, I was parked on the street. The goddamn farmer’s market is early Saturday mornings, if you’re there after 2 AM they tow you.”

                Everett didn’t say anything, but his face drew into a companionable scowl. He refilled David’s coffee. “Well, uh, for the record, I’m still glad you stayed.”

                David couldn’t help but frown. “Why?”

                Everett’s face shuttered down into something less open. He sat down at the table.

                “It’s nice to have someone to sleep with,” he said, and David saw him unconsciously run his fingers over the empty ring finger of his left hand. Oh, God.

                “I usually don’t,” he said, and took some of the toast from Everett’s plate. The man batted his hand away with an insincere outrage, like anyone at a mess table, and gave him an uneven smile.

                “Yeah, okay.” David got the feeling that he was being set at ease, but that couldn’t be right. Everett’s face was neutral, but the gesture—touching his empty ring finger, which obviously hadn’t always been so—said otherwise. Divorced? Widowed? Either way, he seemed shaken up this morning. David took a deep breath. He could always make a new friend, out of this. Why he felt inclined to, he couldn’t tell.

                “It wasn’t bad, though.” He sipped at his coffee again. “Want to help me find my car?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I considered writing a humorous followup where they try to find Telford's car but was undermotivated.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally wrote that bit where they get the car. And some other stuff. As promised, very different in tone. 
> 
> Telford has baggage (more than one), Young learns stuff and thinks. Again, not sure what's up with this one.

                Everett drove them back downtown. The faded white tents and battered metal tables that made up the farmers’ market came into view, sending a tendril of frustrated anger down David’s spine. Everett, unable to continue onto the now occupied street, turned a corner and eventually found a spot to park a few blocks away.

                “I don’t suppose there’s any chance that they just moved you into a nearby parking lot,” Everett said, with a resigned quality to his voice that showed he didn’t think there was any chance.

                “No,” David said. “Fuck, I don’t even know what company handles it all.” His stomach growled, and his head was starting to hurt. Everett unfastened his seat belt.

                “Hey,” he said. “Might as well eat something before you go off and have to spend a lot of money to get your car back.” He opened the driver’s side door and stepped out. Curious, David followed him, a little of his self-directed irritation fading at something new to do.

                “Are you taking me out to breakfast?” he asked, laughing, just to give him a chance to back out.

                “Yeah, sure,” was all Everett said, wrongfooting him, and they walked together down the sidewalk, David with his fists clenched nervously in his jacket pockets. They were walking against a tide of the rest of the town, all with baskets and cloth bags in hand, heading into the farmers’ market. A few wildly excited children crashed into his knees as they played an unsafe game of tag down the sidewalk. He couldn’t determine which were their parents, so he settled for glaring at all the adults for half a block.

                They stopped at the first diner they came upon, which was more of a café, really, David thought. He wasn’t much for cafes, but this felt like one, with its artsy chalked menu and gleaming coffee machinery. It wasn’t as crowded as it might have been on a Saturday morning, so he counted that a bonus and let a high-schooler with dyed purple hair lead them to a small table against the wall.

                “Your server will be with you shortly,” she said brightly, and plunked two glasses of ice water in front of them along with the menu cards. Everett fell into a deep study of the menu. David scanned it, deciding on an omelette full of meat and vegetables, with plenty of carbohydrates on the side. The toast from Everett hadn’t been filling at all. Everett was still looking at the menu, brow slightly furrowed. His dark hair was as springy as it had been last night, falling in front of his face slightly. David pushed down a desire to touch it again: they could flirt alone and subdued at a bar, and do anything they wanted in Everett’s apartment, but being affectionate in public was different. A large part of him wanted to see if he could shock the old married couple to his right, and transforming his sour mood into the fuck-you anger of defensive pride was tempting, but he didn’t know what Everett would say.

                He sat back in his seat, sighing. He really wanted some coffee. Where was their server? He settled for draining half his water and giving himself a brain freeze as a consequence.

                “Have you ever heard of a butternut pancake?” Everett broke their silence, head still bent over the menu. He sounded perplexed.

                “Gimmick,” David said. “It can’t have much of a taste.” Everett didn’t say anything else, but then another high-schooler was drawing up beside them, this one with more acne and undyed hair.

                “Good morning,” she said, pulling out a notepad from her apron. “Are you guys ready to order?”

                “Coffee, to start at least,” David said immediately. He raised an eyebrow at Everett. “Ready?”

                “Sure.” He glanced down at the menu one last time, then smiled slightly at the waitress. “I’d like the pancake plate with sausage on the side, but with the butternut pancakes.”

                David couldn’t help the smile that broke out over his face at that, and ordered for himself.

                “I still think they won’t be that great,” he said. He got the impression Everett was amused at him, and had ordered them to poke at him. Both these things were making him happy, though. As was the coffee that had arrived at last.

                His omelette was hot and satisfying, and he didn’t mind when Everett took a bite to try without asking him, just reaching his maple syrup-coated fork across the little table. The butternut pancakes tasted mostly like regular pancakes, as he’d predicted. Everett seemed satisfied, though, dipping his sausage into the extra syrup.

                “This is better than toast,” David volunteered at last. Everett nodded, ducking his head.

                “Maybe I should get some more food,” he said, in a guilty tone.

                “Only if you make hashbrowns as good as these,” David said, scooping up his last forkful.

                Everett paid, which was a little uncomfortable. He simply said “one check” faster than David would have thought he was capable of talking, but his air was such that David would have felt embarrassed to argue with him in the café. Instead, he got to feel embarrassed and weirdly aroused by Everett paying, as if they were on a date. Everett signed the slip and gave him a questioning look.

                “Ready to go?”

                “Yeah,” David said, and they went.

~

                Everett wasn’t sure what to make of David in the morning. He seemed wound tight, uncomfortable, though after breakfast, it was less pronounced. He stood very straight, shoulders back, but Everett couldn’t tell if that was normal for him. He turned another scowl in the direction of the farmers’ market, which was starting to disgorge people laden with vegetables.

                Everett managed to dredge up the name of the impound yard from the depths of his memories, and drove them in that direction. A very bored looking clerk examined David’s driver’s license with a slowness that even Everett, loitering at the door of the office and trying to find something interesting to look at, found annoying. In the absence of anything else, he was back to staring at David. The dark plaid of his shirt was…nice, with his dark hair and dark jeans. Everything about him seemed nice, if nice meant “made his mouth dry up.”

                He wasn’t sure, but he thought that finding the person still this attractive the morning after the slightly inebriated hook-up wasn’t very common. His last hook-up, while _very_ inebriated, had finished in the guy’s car, and Young had been back on the sidewalk still wasted and barely zipped up. Before that, hook-ups had ended long ago. So, he wasn’t sure, but feeling just as attracted to the guy, and finding him likeable, weren’t part of his morning-after paradigm. It had been pleasant, not uncomfortable, to wake up next to him.

                David finally finished with the clerk, and marched back towards him with a very aggravated expression. Everett decided that it was probably directed at the clerk and just held the door for him. This got him a surprised look, over the anger, and a nod of thanks.

                David’s car was a black Mustang, plain and powerful, though it started with an unsteady growl that made the man frown.

                “Hey,” Everett said, suddenly panicked he’d never see him again. “Want to grab a beer sometime?” He put his hand on the door of David’s car, and David gave him another curious look.

                “I’m at G Street most Saturday nights,” he said. Everett didn’t move his hand.

                “Tonight?”

                “I think so.” David’s face suddenly split into the amused grin he’d had at the diner, and he leaned his upper body out of the window, dragging his hand through Everett’s hair, then rubbing down his neck. Everett startled, heart racing, and heard the Mustang get into gear.

                He went to the bar in question. He didn’t even think of staying home, even though impulsive affection and attraction were what had cost him his marriage. He went later than he had met David last time, and found it a little seedier, and full of college students. Half the floor space seemed to be pool tables, though, and he ordered a beer and scanned for David.

                He was there, arms folded, talking with a group of what looked like college boys. Polo shirts, longish hair, odd shoes. David, in a t-shirt that showed off his considerable muscle, loomed over them. Everett made his way over, and set the beer down on a coaster next to David. One of the frat boys curled his lip very slightly at him, and Everett felt something cold and intense flare up in his belly, his mouth, and his chest. David seemed not to notice, busy dismissing the leader of the group, who seemed to want the table.

                “My friend’s arrived,” he said, tilting his head at Everett. “Get lost.”

                “I’m getting another beer,” Everett said, trying to force the freezing rage back down. He was pissed at the kid. He was fine with being sneered at for his affair and divorce, even if it was unpleasant, because he deserved it. But being sneered at for bringing a beer back to David—who was in a tight shirt and jeans, had his hair brushed back, and looked about as stereotypically gay as the man ever would—made him mad.

                This time, David gave him actual tips at the pool table, though his ‘helpful’ adjustments to Everett’s form were just as distracting as the night before. The rest of the bar seemed to fall away, until they were the only ones there, a haze of light and sound keeping everything else out. The cue passed between their hands, warm where David had touched it, cool elsewhere. David’s hand on his back, his elbow, felt familiar and welcome. He was feeling satisfied over a difficult shot that had actually gone in, drinking in the warmth of David’s eyes, which was softer and deeper and less sharp than last night, when the spell was shattered.

                “Faggots,” someone muttered, and Everett was still feeling the insult wash over him when one of the frat boys from before went reeling back, shoved hard. David stalked forward, grabbing him by the front of his shirt.

                “What the fuck did you just call me?” he bit out, hauling the kid up off his feet, holding him up with one hand. The kid looked mulish, and Everett saw one of his friends pull a phone from his pocket. Right. He closed one hand around David’s wrist, pushing his fingers against the bones.

                “Drop him,” he said firmly. There was a moment where nothing happened, then David let go of the boy as if he was covered in shit, leaving him to stumble and nearly fall.

                “We’re leaving,” Everett said, drawing him away, to the door, and out into the cool of the evening. He was practically shaking with anger, dark eyes blazing. “What was that?” Everett dragged him into the parking lot.

                “My tolerance for it just gets lower and lower every fucking day,” David said, voice like a knife.

                “Yeah, it…it isn’t a good feeling.” Everett leaned against the side of David’s car. “But I wouldn’t punch college students if I were you.”

                “You know I served for twenty-five years,” he said suddenly, and fished around in his pocket. A chain with tags. “Full bird colonel.”

                “Ah,” Everett said quietly, knowing what was coming.

                “Afghanistan, the Balkans, Central America, Iraq,” David continued bitterly. “Discharged in 2009.” He worked his jaw for a second, looking up at the starless sky. “Just got called in and handed the form. Half severance pay for being a faggot.”

                “Yeah,” Everett said. “I’m sorry.”

                “So I don’t handle it well,” he said.

                Curious, Everett asked, “So you never tried to re-enlist after the repeal?”

                “After that? Hell no. Message fucking received.”

                Everett wondered, in the back of his mind, if there would ever be a good time for airing his sins, when he’d gotten away with fraternization and conduct unbecoming just because he never got caught. He’d gotten what he deserved from Emily, but never from the military. Now, though, was definitely not a good time.

                “Wanna give me a ride in your reclaimed car?” he asked.

                “Are we gonna leave your car to get towed this time?” David said, voice much calmer, a bit amused.

                “Uh,” Everett said. “I was kind of banking on going back with you, so I took the bus.”

                “Presumptuous,” David said, voice low, eyes suddenly electric again in the light of the parking lot.

                “You’re easy,” Everett returned, grabbing the side of his face. “Come on, I haven’t seen your place.”

                David turned his face, biting gently at Everett’s fingers with a playfulness that folded into pensiveness after a few moments.

                “You want to, again?”

                “I thought it was good,” Everett said, feeling that ‘I really like you, even besides the sex,’ would be more than David could stand to be articulated at the moment. They could have that conversation later.

                “You were,” David said wickedly, but there was a guardedness in his eyes as he unlocked his car that made Everett think he maybe guessed his motivations. He slid into the passenger seat and David smiled a little. “Well, I like something new, even if it’s something that’s not new anymore.”

                He started the car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It sure is a fun time being an interracial queer couple in public. /sarcasm. 
> 
> Also, sorry about not being able to write real fluff, that was my intention at the start.

**Author's Note:**

> You get bonus points if you can spot all the SGU characters that had a cameo in this.


End file.
